Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #423 from August 7, after several days of similarly challenging puzzles, Connections Companion has made leaps and bounds, rating this puzzle 33 out of 5 for difficulty

Every day, we update our Connections clues and hints And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four answers along with the category title and related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I've included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle 422

Connection #423 has spoilers Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read it

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, Connections' solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection If not, please continue reading for larger hints Also, if you only want the answer, scroll down further

Here's a bigger clue I would start with the restaurant position, then think about the rays and waves Then fill in the ones with bits

Now what is the answer to today's connection in game 423?

Drum roll please

Today's puzzle always has a satisfying solution, and I'm often surprised at how often the NYT Games crew comes up with green and blue categories

Yellow was the easy part: jam, pack, ram, etc ram is a tricky word here because I don't think most people would think it means to pack

Green was then pretty easy with cook, dishlor, host, and server; I tried to get server, byte, server, and host to work and got caught in a computer trap It didn't work

I was concerned about the electromagnetic spectrum from the beginning, but did not think about visible until I got to the last eight letters It became clear that visible light fit better with microwaves, radio, and x-rays than the last four

Purple makes sense and feels like something you should get much earlier in the bridle, bite, comedian, and drill I think these answers are a sign of a good purple

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 27 out of 5

Today's difficulty level of 27 was just right

There was fog instead of dandelions, so I did a quick shot at yellow In my mind, I described it as cottony Also, I was imagining a yellow dandelion, not a ball that a child would send flying all over the place Interchanging the two, I became a cloud, a cotton ball, and a sheep

Generally, when I see a guinea pig, I immediately think of a subject So participants, subjects, and volunteers were easy to spot

Disapproval, hearts, subjects, and protests stuck with me, as I had been taking issue with several categories over the past few days It helped that three of them were right next to each other in the way the grid fell

Purple became a fill for memorization, with "bull" horn, "fog" horn, "matter" horn, and "shoe" horn I like this As I mentioned, I thought of the famous fog horn Leghorn in Looney Tunes Go watch the cartoon